The longtime video game record holders and adjudicators at Twin Galaxies sent us some sad news about Billy Mitchell, “the King of Kong” who gained fame throughout the early days of the arcade era by claiming and defending a high score on Donkey Kong, as well as multiple other games. Now, after years of accusations and months of researching at Twin Galaxies, the organization has decided to strip all of Billy’s records from their leaderboards, including his Donkey Kong record which became the subject of a hit 2007 documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.
The online gaming community has accused Mitchell of cheating for years, culminating in an official complaint from player Jeremy Young. Twin Galaxies finally heeded those accusations and looked into Mitchell’s scores, finding that he failed to comply with multiple TG rules in setting them. Here’s what they claim:
Firstly, the adjudication shows that Mitchell competed on a MAME emulator, not the original Donkey Kong hardware. This allowed for scores, board transitions and gameplay that was not consistent with what other competitors faced. Secondly, Mitchell’s video evidence (TG requires high score attempts to be taped with a video feed of the gameplay recorded as well) was not produced by a direct feed output of an unmodified Donkey Kong game.
“Our methodic approach has allowed many things to surface, not only related to this specific score, but other scores as well as some previously never-before-discussed video game related history. We must repeat, the truth is the priority. That is the concern. Whatever it takes,” Twin Galaxies said in their statement.
